Axed workers want legal action

WORKERS who feel they are heading for the scrapheap when job cuts bite at a printworks today are preparing for legal action against their employer in a row over redundancy payments.

A union spokesman representing staff at Dobson and Crowther in Llangollen said up to 25 workers face being laid off today.

It comes about three months after company bosses launched a formal consultation with staff over redundancies and told shocked staff some workers faced the axe.

Tony Brady, Unite regional officer, said workers being laid off will not receive previously agreed“enhanced” redundancy payments and might not even get any pay off at all from the company.
He said legal proceedings would get under way and called the job losses “effectively sackings”.

He said: “They say they are making people redundant but they are not actually paying them any money. As far as we are aware, as soon as they make people redundant we are going to challenge it under the Trade Union Act.
“We have not had any direct contact with the company about it because we are in dispute with them.
“We are waiting to start legal proceedings against them.”

Dobson and Crowther did not wish to comment when approached by the Leader yesterday.
An employee of Dobson and Crowther, who asked not to be named, said: “Staff will be made redundant on Friday.
“They are not being offered redundancy from the company and will instead have to seek statutory redundancy from the Government. Everybody here is on edge.
“Some of my colleagues who have worked here for 30 years face redundancy tomorrow – it doesn't seem fair, in fact it is a total shambles. We’ve just got to hope there are some jobs left at the end of all this.”

Dobson and Crowther is due to move into a new printworks later this year to make way for a Sainsbury’s supermarket on its current site off Berwyn Street.
The supermarket giant is financing a new factory for Dobson and Crowther across the road.

In a February statement, managing director Paul Holden said the company had lost a substantial contract.
“In spite of the lost contract, effective from April 2014, the underlying business is robust and remains strong enough to support the majority of our workforce,” he said.